Kennelly's Losing Maneuver

Balanced-budget Bill Falls Short -- As Expected

Kennelly Fails In Fight Over Balancing Budget

June 10, 1992|By DAVID LIGHTMAN; Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON — Rep. Barbara B. Kennelly, who fashions herself as a savvy congressional insider with a record of legislative success, Tuesday led a highly visible balanced-budget battle she had predicted would fail.

And she was right.

Her plan was clobbered 220-199, some 80 House votes short of the two-thirds majority needed.

The 1st District Democrat from Hartford called her hour in the congressional floodlights an act of conscience.

But opponents called it an act of political desperation. Moreover, they said it was a waste of time.

"The fact that it went down shows this was not a serious effort to deal with our fiscal crisis. Most people wondered why we took this up," said Rep. Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, chief architect of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

Stenholm and others charged that Kennelly and her supporters, who decided just five days ago to push the bill and never held hearings on it, wanted credit for backing a balanced-budget law, but really did not want one to pass.

Kennelly's bill "does nothing more than provide cover" for lawmakers who want to seem like they support balanced budgets, but really do not, House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, R-Ill. charged.

Stenholm's version of the amendment, which has become an election-year priority for President Bush and congressional conservatives, would forbid the government from spending more money than it expects to collect each year. The president would have to submit balanced budgets, something never done by Bush or Ronald Reagan, who have championed the proposal.

Kennelly's bill would have required the president and Congress to devise a plan next year to balance the federal budget by fiscal 1997-98.

wanted it simply to be a law, meaning it would be easier to carry out -- since approval of the states would not be required -- as well as undo.

Debate is scheduled today on the constitutional amendment approach, an approach that bothers Kennelly.

So she waged her lonely, and in a way ironic, fight Tuesday. She not only thought the fight doomed from the start, but also waged it knowing that shrinking the deficit to zero could mean higher taxes or massive spending cuts in programs such as urban aid, programs dear to her heart and her district.

Why was Kennelly doing this?

Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group, saw Kennelly making political points back home.

"This is Kennelly playing her Connecticut connection more than anything else," said Isaacs. "Everyone is so sensitive up there to being called a tax-and-spender. I think she's scared to death in terms of Connecticut politics."

No, no, no, Kennelly insisted. This is conscience, not politics.

"I have some basic beliefs, like separation of church and state, and another is that you don't tamper with the Constitution unless you realize what you're doing," she said.

"I have such respect for the Constitution," Kennelly explained. "Its integrity has kept us together through wars and depressions."

If a balanced-budget amendment was adopted, she feared, the power to tax and spend would become a matter for the courts and a handful of politicians to decide.

The courts would get involved because of almost-certain legal challenges. The small group of politicians would matter because under the plan sponsored by Stenholm, there would have to be a three-fifths vote of Congress before a deficit would be allowed.

"You'd be getting into minority rule," Kennelly complained, contending that only two-fifths of Congress plus one could block a deficit. "And the courts would become bookkeepers."

Kennelly has been thinking about her idea for weeks, but her role jelled only last Thursday. House Democrats met privately to discuss what to do, and many members were upset about fooling with the Constitution.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash., never liked the idea of a balanced-budget amendment, but Stenholm had claimed the support of more than 300 House members.

Democratic leaders scrambled to save face. Their own members were jumping on a bullet train and waving goodbye to the people who are supposed to be the conductors.

In the leadership, House Budget Committee Chairman Leon E. Panetta, D-Calif., held a series of hearings and denounced the idea at every one.

Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., and Whip David E. Bonior, D-Mich., the No. 2 and No. 3 powers in the House, offered their own approach, a constitutional amendment that would make it easier to approve deficits than in the Stenholm approach, and that would keep Social Security out of any budget equations.

None of this seemed to unify the House's 267 Democrats, who saw Republicans gaining a huge political edge with their strong support of Stenholm's idea.

Enter Kennelly, one of three House chief deputy whips. For weeks, she had talked in leadership meetings about her idea. Now, a